DSHARP I. Sample, ALMA obs. log and overview

The primary goal of DSHARP is to find and characterize substructures in the spatial distributions of solid particles for a sample of 20 nearby protoplanetary disks, using very high resolution (~0.035", or 5au, Full width half maximum (FWHM)) observations of their 240GHz (1.25mm) continuum emission.

These data provide a first homogeneous look at the small-scale features in disks that are directly relevant to the planet formation process, quantifying their prevalence, morphologies, spatial scales, spacings, symmetry, and amplitudes, for targets with a variety of disk and stellar host properties. We find that these substructures are ubiquitous in this sample of large, bright disks. They are most frequently manifested as concentric, narrow emission rings and depleted gaps, although large-scale spiral patterns and small arc-shaped azimuthal asymmetries are also present in some cases.